Ali Abdaal

[Magallanes]

have you seen his post on youtube asking if we would buy a book on productivity written by him? he made a poll and received very different results, from people saying 'yes i'd buy one if the reviews are good' to 'no, not really'
i find it odd to ask your followers that sort of question if you haven't even started to write it. i think he doesn't want to 'waste' his time on writing if it doesn't sell well later. it's like he's looking for new sources of income. his interest on the medic career is nowhere to be seen

 

[Machtc99]

if he had ASD then a large chunk of his behavior would make sense. obviously some of it is inexcusable, but i'd be able to understand why he is the way he is.

I am sick of hearing that it's ok to behave like him just because he may be or is in ASD.

As a society we should stop pretending that ASD people are cool and it's ok to have no empathy. Really. If he has ASD he should, on the first place, seek for therapy to learn how to overcome his limitation. The same way person with PTSD should seek for help. Instead he is pretending to be the "guru" who "knows how to be entrepreneur, youtuber, doctor", who can justify the bs of quitting medicine by giving money to charity and "saving more people" AND who sees LTR as a relationship where he can give only 10% of his time to his wife. Let's stop pretending that it's ok to be ASD, that it is cute and that it is not harmful for the other people. It is danger, harmful, needs to be treated and is not cute at all.

If you want to come for me and say I am not tolerant imagine yourself in a relationship where your boyfriend/girlfriend would tell you "we can be together but you have only 10% of my time" - wouldn't it fk your mind and harm your mental health?

ASD people are sick, they need treatment and help, not "career". Same story goes for Elon Musk who is also in the spectrum and has no empathy at all.

Ali has a career because he applies to certain demographics and is seen by Indian and Pakistani people as a success story. They also want to have success and money and go from their 3-world countries. So much that they don't see Ali is not relating to them - he can justify outsourcing and paying less for his Asian mates just because it WORKS FOR HIM. Period.

 

[Jotham]

I'm not suggesting they're bad people bc they have mental disorders etc. Im suggesting they're bad people for telling/showing their impressionable naive audience their mental disorders and not seeking help professionally

This feels a little victim-blamey? I'd love for them to get professional help but it's easier said than done. Getting professional help is sometimes the hardest step for someone struggling with a disorder.

 

[AbsoluteSt8]

I used to be subscribed to Ali back when he was still at Cambridge, I thought that he was just a really knowledgeable passionate guy who loved medicine and knew some great tips about the medicine application process and studying. But over the past two years.... I just can't stand his content. Not just the fact that his company charges hundreds of pounds for courses that directly contribute to the classism in the medicine application process but oof... His most recent video? Hit the nail on the head.

The fact that he indirectly said; "a doctor in the NHS will only ever save around 8 lives in their lifetime and I can save more by donating at least £24,000 to this charity, hence why I wanted to stay on YouTube" just really disgusted me. I don't understand why if he wants to stay on YouTube and do his business thing why he has to lowkey attack medicine? Why does he have to use these BS reasons to justify why he wants to do something he's passionate about? Just own up to it! Also, the fact that money seems to be a huge thing in his life; showing that he has it, is worth it, while that's not a bad thing; why can't he just own who he is. I just couldn't believe that he tried to use the fact that because more people watch his YouTube videos than however many he may or may not be able to help on the wards as a reason why being a doctor wasn't worth it to him.

Not just that but also all that stuff about "oh, but there's locums and the hospitals will always find someone to fill the gap". Dude, just own what you did. The whole country knew that the NHS was struggling. It was an unprecedented pandemic.

I'm just so disappointed in someone that I had previously perceived as quite genuine.

The comment about a doctor *only* saving 8 lives (this sounds difficult to measure in any meaningful way unless we think of 'saving lives' WRT emergency medicine/surgery etc, because most specialties - psychiatry, dermatology, obstetrics come to mind as less obvious examples (remember reading a post from an obstetrician saying it's one of the toughest specialties because there's often an expectation that childbirth will go according to plan in a way that isn't present in other fields) - involve saving lives but often in a much more gradual way) is particularly ironic given that iirc he captioned a lot of Instagram posts with #savinglives etc when he was a student/F1

 

[TheTatler]

Came across this all of a sudden. Had a good chuckle as his ignorance. Thanks, Ali!

View attachment 963029

I getcha, Tomasz. I really getcha.
https://twitter.com/drtomrynkiewicz

I getcha, tomasz. i really getcha

 

[TheTatler]

Please, clear your current reads, Ali.

 

[notreplying]

I get the feeling he's fairly typical for a Cambridge medic? They're very focused on academics and the interview process is quite different from what's dicussed in that post. I attended one of his courses for med applications a long time ago and I remember him being asked about applying to Oxbridge - he replied something along the lines of do you just want to be a doctor or do you want to go to an elite medical school? Which I think says it all

 

[ggacc]

Re: discussion of emotional intelligence above. Didn't Ali say in a video a while back that when he was at school and told his headmaster that he wanted to apply to medicine, he was told he was 'too robotic / not warm enough' and wouldn't pass medicine interviews? I can't remember which video now but I found that interesting.

 

[hollowcrown]

Honestly wtf is that video. I am run assessment centres for placement students at companies before and hired a few full time permanent employees also and just like he's bitching about the most basic of stuff

"Don't refer to someone as hiring manager"

There is literally nothing wrong with this it's the most normal and safest thing to do as you don't know who you are emailing!

"Don't use formal language"

Safest thing to do is to use formal language as once again you don't know who the application is going to? Trying to fucking "match the vibe of the company" what a load of bullshit.

The whole video is how to get a job at Ali Abdaals pathetic company it's not helpful at all for applying to ANY other company.

You lean in secindary school, didnt we all do work experience? And then also uni, he really does say anything

Ali probably didn't have to apply he probably fell into an NHS placement because of his mum or his dad.

 

[AbsoluteSt8]

Watched a bit of his video about how much he earns and the part where he mentions grad salaries of his peers definitely seems exaggerated - he says that those who did law or economics almost instantly started making 6 figures whereas medicine takes longer. Whilst it's true that medicine generally takes longer to build up income, I remember seeing data about the average UCL grad salaries (believe it was from the ONS or IFS but don't have it to hand, if anyone knows what I'm talking about feel free to link) which gave the average salaries after leaving (I think it was 1 year after?) where the range was roughly £18k to £30k, with medicine at the top followed by economics (£29k), don't remember law but it's probably not representative given that a lot of lawyers take a humanities subject and then a GDip. Law would take longer as an LLB doesn't qualify you to be a lawyer without a training contract (which often have ridiculous competition ratios), and it would probably be a couple of years until you made 6 figures anyway with either of those degrees in almost any job (even in investment banking I think it takes 2-3 years and that's a highly competitive area which very few grads can actually go into). The idea that even a significant proportion of a cohort of econ/law grads make 6 figures *almost instantly*, even from a top uni, is misleading.

I think one problem with medtube in general is how money is talked about: it's either seen as the sole focus of pursuing medicine or denied as being a factor at all (I'm hoping to pursue GEM and even the salary for F1/F2 doctors, which I've heard used as a reason why you shouldn't go into medicine for the money, is a far cry from my household income growing up)

 

[sergeantsantiago]

Sorry what is this to do list, productive poo? Is that necessary? Plus gym shark call? Hope his begging hasn’t worked, another AD not disclosed properly!

What a try hard...

Also like how he's "figuring out wht to do" with his life when he's lucky enough to have stable, steady income in a pandemic. Seems a bit tone deaf tbh.

 

[Machtc99]

Slight tangent but I saw this on the student room yesterday (detailing the interview process, how applicants with family in medicine have an advantage and how some interviewers are ill-suited to non-science questions) and would recommend reading for more info from someone who has done interviews (or claims to - it's anonymous but seems to line up with what I've heard previously) - https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6979622

At undergrad level there's definitely an emphasis on science throughout secondary/post-16 education for medicine as you need strong science GCSEs and biology and chemistry at A-level, less so for GEM as you don't always need a science background but Ali was an undergrad I believe

This is very interesting and I still think there must have been an error with his admission. It's clear now that he is not interested in being a doctor, he just wants the prestige.

On the last Q&A video he again mentions looking for a girlfriend. Damm this is an obsession.

 

[JohnMasters]

Meeting someone through his course is more relatable and "normal" than meeting someone via a dating app.

If you honestly think that youtubers picking their dating options from their fanbase is normal, then... I guess you haven't been on the internet at all til now.

 

[Hasanah123]

He has got a book deal and brainstorming ideas on what the book will be about!! What a bloody joke

 

[hollowcrown]

Do you remember where he said it?
I don't think it is only a matter of UK girls / boys. If you are serious about relationship, you have to be able to invest time to develop it.
I am gay, I am 30, my life partner is 45. We spend most of the time together now and back then when we met. He is, and will be on the first place.

Ali does not understand how relationships work.

I've recently seen a video with him and Sheen on her channel where they talk about the French law to ban hijab for girls under 18 y.o in France. No matter if you agree with French attitude towards muslim girls or not, Ali seemed not interested at all. Maybe he is afraid to have clear and strong opinion on a such sensitive topic, but if he wants to get a girl he should be able to make a clear statement about this part of life.

And sorry that I am coming back to his outsourcing to Asia. He is a person of color, he should be more aware that his words may be considered as racial-offensive. At the end of the day he as a privileged, colored person from first-world country outsourced a job to developing country only because he wanted to save some cash.

Uhh it was in either one of his short videos rambling about things, or one of the podcast episodes. Perhaps this one:

Taimur continues to be the brother who actually has emotional intelligence and lives in the real world.

I think learning to be alone in your 20s is a really important skill to have but also you can't go too far the other way and want to be alone all the time especially when you want a relationship. Being in a relationship happens because you want to spend time with one another. And even when people say they barely want to spend any time with each other on dating apps, that is 100% not going to be actually true. Except for Ali, he probably does actually think he's going to get a girlfriend who does not want to spend any time together, and that's probably why despite all of the premium app subscriptions he is not getting anywhere.

I recently unfollowed him on Twitter after having had followed him for a while. All the money focused content is just getting me down. Felt like he posted something really annoying that didn't align with my left wing views. Either way is Twitter is so fucking garbage. No personal insight into the person just chopped up bits of his videos. Extremely boring.

 

[Machtc99]

I've said it earlier and will say it now.
He thinks that reading this bsh books is a way of improving his life. No, it isn't. You can read 1-2 books and pick something up from them, but you cannot create the whole life with a mindset that I will read a book and it will change my life. A lot of our life experience is based on our life, our choices, our behaviour, people we meet, places we go. No just based on the books we read.

I don't know what his chanel is about. He is not a productivity guy. Maybe a book reviewer? Or a finance advisor?

I know that India and Pakistan have a lot of people, but still cannot understand the way his chanel grows. He puts the same content with different subtitles and slightly changed wording, and yet his comments section is always full of praise for him.

 

[hollowcrown]

I wouldn't care if these YouTubers were putting out money-making idea videos (the content of which is questionable anyway but that's another topic) but to put shit like "$100k a month!" and "$27k a week!" in the thumbnails is gross.

Really cannot be happy for anyone making that amount of money when our nurses are underpaid and the government could not be bothered to pay for hungry children to eat. Especially when these YouTubers make clickbait videos about cash avoidance.

Plus Ali has admitted it's clickbait he is not a cash millionaire anyway so wouldn't be surpriused if he was misreporting some of his revenues as profits etc. for the sake of getting views.

 

[hollowcrown]

The more he reveals about his personal and business finances the less credible he becomes.

 

[hollowcrown]

Being a teacher is totally a great goal! But when he mentioned his channel as a way he'd engaged in teaching... I'm not so sure. Another "teaching" activity probably includes that really expensive YouTube course he offered. So idk - that's teaching, in a way, I guess, but I can't quite get myself to find that inspirational

He seems like he would be a great academic kinda lecturer/teacher at a university or med school. Unfortunately that's probably a fairly modest paying job compared to what he is earning selling £1000 courses online so isn't appealing to him, but it would be a perfect job for him really.

 

[Roundhouses]

Honestly if I were a doctor I would never admit this to my ginormous online platform? What the hell

I remember reading a while ago an article talking about how medicine and veterinary science graduates were highly academic but there was an increasing lack of social skills/good bedside manner.

Personally if Ali was my doctor I wouldn’t be able to take him seriously. I just think he’s a bit of a bellend

I think this is an interesting discussion point because if he ever goes back to being a doctor - what happens if he treats people who know him from youtube/other endeavours? How does that fit in with the GMC guidelines on professional distancing? Yes he is never unprofessional in his youtube videos but I'm thinking more along the lines of - what if him being a Youtuber does change a patient's perspective of him/the profession. That is currently against GMC guidance. Interesting to know where the line is because this is a very new issue, probably one which none of the regulators have thought about.